Sudden Deception (A Jill Oliver Thriller) (11 page)

11:17 Zulu Time—KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

Dusk settled upon them as they disembarked the airplane. They clunked down an old set of metal stairs onto the tarmac and followed the line of shaken travelers across the patched pavement. It was significantly cooler in Kabul, Jill noted.

The terminal was worse than she had imagined. The green-gray paint-chipped walls betrayed its age. The letter L was missing from the sign saying ‘KABUL’ implied no budget for maintenance. Inside, Jill’s nostrils wanted to shut down when they inhaled a smell unlike any other she had experienced. It seemed to be a combination of concentrated house cleaner, sweat, and wet sand. Her instant reaction was to clamp her nose shut with her hand but she resisted.

There were only a few people standing at arrivals, and the clock behind them read 16:04. This struck Jill as odd for an airport. Normally airports were full of people waiting for their visitor to arrive. Must be a security issue, she thought. Yet there was no shortage of guards with automatic weapons dressed in gray jumpsuits with AK-47s resting over their shoulders. They didn’t look in their direction while talking and smoking and seemed oblivious to their arrival. The customs agent was dressed the same as security and only grunted as they passed through the security machine. Exiting the building, a sea of colorfully dressed people had gathered: the arrival crowd. Jill always enjoyed waiting at the arrivals gate. It gave her a sense of joy to see the elation of others as they welcomed loved ones home from their destinations. She often thought what good therapy it would be for anyone depressed to spend some time at the arrivals gate.

Zayed did his scan again. Jill did hers. At eleven o’clock on the scan, a woman approached Jill carrying a small child. She held out her hand and begged. She was dressed in a bright blue abaya; the headdress was much different than what Jill had worn. There was a mesh mask over the eye area; it was even more restrictive than the burqa she had been wearing from Doha. Zayed said something slightly forceful in what Jill thought might be the local language, Pashto and the woman shyly ambled away.

Most of the people in the crowd were men. They were dressed similar to the taxi drivers in Abu Dhabi, yet not as clean looking in their faded clothing. They wore turbans wrapped loosely in balls on their heads.

Jill and Zayed pushed their way through the crowd and approached several taxis that were lined up with drivers smiling, waiting for a paying customer. The black-and-white cars were run-down and riddled with dents and chipped paint. Zayed chose one and Jill wondered how the trip to Kushka would be in that car. Would it even be able to make the trip? Zayed leaned his head in the window and spoke to the driver. Another whiff smacked her in the nose. Jill could not distinguish the smell. It was part sewage, part body odor, and maybe burnt jet fuel. After some discussion between Zayed and the driver, they got into the decrepit car. The driver honked his way through the wave of people.

During the ride, Jill saw yet another large portrait of someone famous. Next to the grandiose headshot was a military fighter jet painted in camouflage green. As they drove under the wing towards the security gate, Jill noticed the number eighty-two painted on it.

At the security checkpoint the guard in military fatigues flicked his automatic rifle, signaling them through. There really was no point in checking the taxi or for security leaving an airport, Jill thought, and she curiously looked back to the inbound guardhouse. They were stopping vehicles going into the airport. A guard held a long stick with a mirror on it to scan underneath vehicles. Jill felt thankful she lived in the US as they left the airport grounds.

Kabul was as she imagined. Even at night she could see the devastation of war and poverty. The sides of the roads were lined with homeless, hopeless-looking people huddling together to stay warm. The sounds of honking horns added to the cacophony. Cars hit one another like taps on the shoulder and then continued driving. Chaos surrounded them this night and Jill looked over at Zayed, convinced they could not make the trip in the rat-trap taxi.

Kabul, as Jill had read, was over 3,500 years old, and prior to the civil wars in the ‘90s it was deemed a fairly cosmopolitan city. Now it just looked worn out. The gloomy grey buildings showed the strain from the plague of unrest. Kabul linked other major centers in Afghanistan via a ring road connecting Kandahar and Heart. This road would be the first part of their trip to Kushka.

Before Jill spoke her concerns, Zayed whispered, “We are going to go to a hotel, find a driver, and then leave in the morning. We have a better chance of getting through the checkpoints then.”

Jill was relieved that they did not have to embark on the long journey tonight, but the relief lasted only a moment when she began to wonder about the condition of the hotel. It must be better than the boat ride they took—anything would be better than that.

The taxi driver made a hard U-turn and stopped at a big gate. Two guards came out while a third watched knowingly. One guard had the leash of a scrawny German shepherd and held the dog tightly as it sniffed around their taxi. The guard with the mirrored stick gave no expression. Only the beret tilted on his head ever so slightly jauntily on his head showed a hint of personality.

The driver got out of the taxi, walked around to the back, and opened the trunk for inspection. They passed inspection, and continued up a long driveway to the hotel. Jill was taken aback when a sharply dressed porter came out and opened the door. He had a white earpiece that curled down the back of his neck and Jill was comforted by her first impression—until she saw the doorway was equipped with a metal detector. She resigned herself to the fact that they were in a former war zone and walked through.

Stepping into the hotel was like stepping into a different country. The lavishly decorated lounge area had a distinct Moroccan flavor, with clean marble floors contrasting the spittoons placed every twenty feet along the walls. The walls themselves were painted a deep Indian red. Behind the lobby desk stood two men, and Zayed approached, speaking to them in Pashto, confirming to Jill that indeed Zayed must have been here before to have spoke this language. She had no way of know how well he spoke it, but they seemed to understand him. The taller of the well-dressed clerks pointed to a man sitting behind a desk in the corner. While they conversed, Jill looked around and was surprised to see a bank machine in the lobby. Does it even work? she wondered. She had no need to use it as one of the things her training had taught her was to always bring as much cash as possible; she was more curious to understand how a hotel like this could survive in the middle of war-torn Kabul.

Tired, she walked over and relaxed onto one of the colorful couches, and waited for Zayed. Within minutes he was back and he handed Jill her room key.

“I managed to get a car and a driver for us for tomorrow. They have room service, so go ahead and order some food and get some rest. I have to go out and arrange for the trip to Kushka. My room is next to yours. I will get a wake-up call for six a.m. Is that good for you?”

“Where are you going and what is it you need to arrange now?” Jill queried pointedly.

“I am meeting with the driver tonight to make sure we can trust him. It’s not a big deal, so please just go and get some rest. We have a long trip tomorrow.”

“Whatever,” she responded in a rebellious tone. She was tired of his overbearing behavior. Jill turned fast, marched towards the elevator and sharply punched the button. She refused to look back at Zayed.

She arrived at her room, and upon opening the door, was instantly elated. The king-sized bed was covered in a bright red Moroccan-styled bedspread. A flat-screen television sat at the end of the bed, and across the room she could see patio doors with a balcony. Jill put her carry-on down, walked to the window, and looked out. The view was one of scattered lights in disarray, from buildings along the horizon.

She turned around and spied the door to the bathroom. She was happy that it was spotless. Hand towels were rolled up beside both sinks while a bright orange orchid bloomed in a small vase. Before she could think of having a shower, she picked up the phone to call Stan Brown. Voicemail. She didn’t leave a message. After all, what would she say? I know you are a disgusting pig but what do you want?

Jill undressed, turned on the shower, and stepped into the large tiled tub. She let the hot water massage her until she almost tipped over from exhaustion. She pulled down the thick white robe that hung neatly on a hanger behind the door, wrapped herself snugly in it, and headed back into the main room. Pulling the crisp bedspread down, she sat and contemplated what to do—the beauty of the room and a hunger pang made the decision easy. She hadn’t eaten much in the last twenty-four hours. Fast snacks on the plane were all she could bear. But now she suddenly felt famished. She knew that she needed to eat to keep her strength. After all, she really didn’t know what she was getting herself into, or what she would encounter tomorrow. She needed her strength right now. But even with thoughts of reason calming her mind, her heart somehow began to ache even more. After ordering room service, she plugged in her laptop and connected to the Internet. The speed was good when she checked her mail.

Nothing from David. She sighed and clicked on the e-mail from Karine. It was a short e-mail:

No luck with the Zayed name. It’s as if he doesn’t exist. Jeff left me a voicemail saying that he would ask his PA to get the information on Zayed that you requested. But still nothing yet.

She couldn’t reach Stan Brown and Leila’s phone was switched off. No new reports on the news.

Jill stood up, walked over to her carry-on, and pulled out the leather pouch and notebook. “Hello,” Jill muttered with a smile. She snapped the laptop shut and pushed it to the side of the desk, placed the notebook down, and began to pull out the eight pieces of clay. Placing them randomly on the desk, she fished out a pen and opened her notebook. She dated the top and scribbled a question.

“Where is David?”

Jill abruptly stopped, dropped the pen and shivered. She looked down at the blank page and closed her eyes. You can do this, Jill. Stay focused. And then as she had practiced with her shrink, she blurted, “Screw you, Matthew McGregor. Screw you!”

With further hesitation she moved the pen square in the middle of the blank page and stared at it. Looking over at the numbers, Jill whispered, “Optimum trajectory. Optimum trajectory.” Jill attempted to stay focused on the academics of remote viewing to keep her mind off of that sketch, that goddamn haunting sketch. With trance-like movements, she picked up a number and clicked it down on the desk. One by one by one by one. True intuition only comes from a thoughtless mind, she thought, but shouldn’t. Remote viewing was only successful when the mind was quiet … open. Jill began to hum. Looking through the numbers she moved around on the desk, Jill said the question over and over again: “Where is David? … Where are you, David?” The clay numbers scraped slightly. She moved the numbers around on the desk in a random fashion and hummed. “David.” She tried to open, tried to see the target number. But her hand kept moving them. Focus, goddamn it. Focus.

She was working hard trying to peel off the layers, trying to get to the core of peace—that place where the remote viewers went.

She saw it first before she heard it. The sketch was rammed in front of her view. It was sketched in black charcoal with finger smudges on the edges. It was a sketch of a square hole, like an entrance to a cave. Around the cave was a sign carved into the side of the rock. Luray.

“You bitch, you whiney little bitch,” spat Matthew McGregor as he forced the sketch upon Jill.

Jill screamed and almost knocked the chair over backwards as she lurched herself back to the room, awaking her from her trance.

“No, no, no!” cried Jill as she angrily swiped the clay numbers across the floor. She grabbed a wad of hair as if she was going to pull it out. Sitting forward curled over the desk, for the first time in a long time, Jill wailed.

Time passed and her wails turned into sobs and then into attempts to gain her breath. She looked over at the numbers that were scattered on the floor and sighed. Defeated. She had never felt so defeated, so upset with herself. What the hell was she thinking coming here? David needs me and I can’t even get out of this hell.

She didn’t know how much time had passed when she was interrupted by a knocking on the door.

“Room service.”

She pushed her food around and around the plate while she sipped on her glass of cheap vintage. Jill could not stop staring over at the numbers that she had placed back onto the desk. She hadn’t pulled them out for some time now and she wondered if she would have been able to see something, anything.

She excused herself as being tired. But there were no excuses, not anymore. She got up and put the tray outside the door, shut off the lights, and lay down in bed. Her cried out eyes were still swollen as she watched the building lights filter through the curtain. Jill thought of David. The thought passed as the exhaustion of a hard sob pushed her body into the sheets.

The long wooden tree branch cuts into the hard, rocky sand. A large circle is drawn encompassing a cryptic symbol. The symbol is something I recognize. The hum of chants surrounds the sand painting. The symbol has two large outlined figures and two small ones. Stick figures. They looked like upside-down Us with round heads. The bodies are cut in half with only the top of the silhouette showing. The Navajo symbol of family.

03:30 Zulu Time—KABUL, AFGHANISTAN

Answer the phone, she thought, as she was pulled out of a deep sleep. And indeed it was blaring intrusively.

“Hello?”

“This is your wake-up call!” the recorded voice spoke in monotone.

Jill jumped out of bed groggy from deep sleep. She stepped over to the desk, pulled out her notebook and quickly wrote a summary of her vision. She didn’t have time to analyze it now. Fumbling through the balance of her clean clothes, she went into the bathroom, showered, packed, and was about to open the door when she heard a knock. Zayed’s strong features and freshly manicured whiskers boasted a good night’s rest.

“You get everything done okay?” Jill said bluntly.

A nod from Zayed was his only response.

They headed downstairs and checked out of the hotel. Jill squinted in the bright sun. She did her usual scan for anything that seemed suspect. Nothing. A man in a light blue uniform greeted them. AL GAZAL was stitched across his top pocket. He spoke broken English and looked Afghani with his long orange dyed goatee. When he smiled widely you could see he was missing some teeth. Zayed nodded recognition. The hotel grounds appeared different in the daylight. They were filled with beautiful bright orange flowers, trimmed grass, and a large water fountain on the other side of the valet drive, gurgling spray. To her right was a black 4x4 sedan similar to the ones they used in the US Marshall Service.

“Come,” the man motioned to Jill. She put her pack in the back and noticed plastic bags stuffed with junk food and a box of liquor. The waft of cigarette smoke threatened her nose when she climbed into the backseat. Frankly, the smell of stale cigarettes before coffee pissed her off. But she said nothing.

The man held up a map and pointed to Kushka. Zayed and Jill agreed on the route. First, they would head along the Kabul River on the main highway. If they continued on it would take them to Peshawar in Pakistan, Highway A76. They would then go south on what looked like a gravel road into the mountains until they reached the small town of Kushka. Jill noticed the map was slightly different from the one she had. Although it was faded, she saw Xs jotted with a black marker.

“What are those black marks?” she pointed to the page.

“Checkpoints,” he responded in his thick accent.

Zayed handed the driver four envelopes filled with cash for the checkpoints, and their journey began.

Watching Zayed hand the man cash provoked a question Jill had had before but never asked. Where did Zayed get this much cash? The driver seemed friendly enough, but Jill was puzzled by how easy it seemed for Zayed to have found him. A driver that spoke English in Kabul could not be an easy find. She tried to place the name Al Gazal and decided it must be a taxi service of some sort. Jill was reluctant to ask him with the driver within earshot, so she turned to gaze out the back window instead.

The more she thought about it the more Jill realized she didn’t know much about Zayed at all. She was back in the tunnels. Speeding through her memories in fast forward, the images too fast to recognize as they flashed past. She hadn’t had time to get into the tunnels in the past couple of days, not while she was awake anyway. It was a gift of hers. Normally when something didn’t sit quite right when she was profiling she would go into her quiet office, put her feet up on her desk, and stare at an object. While her instinct searched her memory, like nature’s computer scan, there was always something that pulled up an image. Something that her intuition made her see. Something only her intuition could feel. Today it stopped on two images. One, the Chechens’s. Two, Stan Brown. She looked over at Zayed and wished she could pull out her notebook, but she didn’t want him to see her notes. They were private.

Jill thought back to what Karine had said about Zayed. The Arab that waited for her arrival in Doha seemed like too much of a coincidence, and now traveling the highway in the SUV also seemed too convenient. But she was here now. Shoot, move, communicate, survive. And with that resolve, she sighed and moved on.

Anticipation at finding David consumed Jill, and briefly took her mind off of Zayed. There was no dread, no fear in her psyche. Well, not yet anyway. But she needed to understand what the Chechens and Stan Brown had to do with her. She should have tried to reach Stan again—now more than ever. She kicked herself.

The city was awake now and there were a mix of people on the busy streets. Men in business suits walked alongside others in robes. Some were holding hands with each other. Jill knew in this part of the world that men holding each other’s hands was not something sexual, but more of a sign of friendship. She’d seen it in Doha and Abu Dhabi alongside men Eskimo kissing—nose to nose. Most of the vehicles on the road were civilian cars, SUVs, and then the occasional motorcycle. There were several wagons pulled by horses and seemingly endless numbers of people on foot.

As the scenes flicked past, Jill decided they must be on one of the famous Silk Routes described in the report from Karine. These Silk Routes were used mainly to transport silk made in China and shipped to Rome. In return, the Roman traders shipped gold and ivory back on the same road. Now, these routes carried drug traffickers, Taliban, and opium smugglers.

The driver in the front seat began to speak. He explained that the opium trade was rampant in his country.

“The government … does nothing,” he said. As they left the city he pointed to several landmarks of war. Blown-up trucks, twisted metal, and building rubble lined the valley towards the gray mountains ahead. Signs warning of landmines were posted about every kilometer. While he continued his grim story, Jill noticed the beautiful colors of the city they were leaving behind. The terracotta, yellow, navy blue and hints of purple impressed her. But as the city colors began to fade behind them, the bleak frontier of Afghanistan began to emerge. The blue of the sky highlighted the barren foothills. The further they snaked away from the city the lighter the traffic became. They passed a few aid and military vehicles but little other traffic. In the distance, Jill could see what looked like tiny villages strewn on the face of the dreary mountains.

This road, at least, was smoothly paved as they traveled easily up towards the mountains. The driver grew quiet. Several times during the ten-hour journey, she found herself wondering about her visions—wondering about the Chechens and why they were after her. Why am I dreaming of family? This must be about David. The thought did not sit well with her, but she couldn’t figure out why.

They stopped at the checkpoints and the bribes moved them through. It turned out their driver was experienced at this, because at every checkpoint he would open the back of the truck and the non-smiling guards, dressed in green army fatigues and carrying automatic rifles, would politely take a bottle of vodka. The driver commented that sometimes these guards are so poorly paid that food was more valuable than vodka. With the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and its breakup into a dozen countries, Jill could understand why. But she had thought things were better now for the displaced Russians. Not in Afghanistan it seemed. The driver’s vodka donation plus US cash was something the guards cherished, cherished more than the country that had caused their situation.

These checkpoints were set up for the opium smugglers, and it was mainly women who worked as mules to transport the lethal heroin mix. The guards needed to indulge in some corruption to keep up a satisfactory lifestyle, so they stopped every vehicle, containing a woman or not. The guards appeared intimidating when they came out of the run-down bolo-type steel trailer. They spoke a dialect of some sort of Russian. They appeared confident, waving their black truck through, one checkpoint after the other.

They were able to get fuel and food—if you could call it food. Hard crusted wraps, some stale potato chips and a melted chocolate bar, in a town called Chaghcharan, about two-thirds of the way to Kushka. The sun had begun to set as they crested the last mountain. In the distance, Jill thought she could see Turkmenistan. They must be getting close; her heart ached to see David.

During the journey Zayed sat limply, relaxed. He made no sound and the movement of his eyelids indicated he was in REM. His sideburns trailed into the hair on his cheeks. His large nose arched in the middle before it rounded over and hooked, meeting his full lips. Who are you, Zayed?, Jill thought.

The GPS voice was an English female, oddly in a British accent. The driver piped up: “Kushka, five minutes,” and with that Zayed awoke.

Kushka looked very different from Kabul. Even in the dusk Jill could see that Kushka was far greener and more colorful. The poorly lit streets were filled with the shapes of people walking. A motorcycle honked as it zipped past them—one and then another.

“It looks like the main mode of transport is motorbikes,” Jill said. Her voice sounded louder than she had intended.

“Or horse carts,” the driver joked.

Zayed asked the driver to take them to a hotel and the driver explained there was only one main hotel in town.

They saw very few women wearing abayas. Royal blues, bright yellow outlined with red – colorful dresses appeared to be the local favorite.

They pulled up to a run-down government building. The driver pointed to the building and said, “This is the hotel.” The sign on it was not in English. A cross between Arabic and Russian, Jill wasn’t sure. Zayed asked the driver to wait while they went into the makeshift hotel to see what was available. Jill blinked hard when she walked in. It was as if they’d come off a deserted US highway to a motel that hadn’t been refurbished in decades. Spittoons lined the hallway and her first impression was one of conflict. The gray marbled floor and front desk were clean and almost sparkled in the light. But the windows were dirty, and most were cracked. Jill stretched her back by pulling her arms forward, while Zayed spoke to the attendant at the front desk.

A moment later Jill’s attention was drawn to Zayed as he walked toward her. He looked uneasy and when he turned to speak, she felt as if she could read his mind.

“We have to share a room,” he told her matter-of-factly. Jill felt her skin flush, but the strength of his words told her they had no choice. “No record of David being here.”

She wasn’t going to have any of this crap. She marched over to the desk and asked about getting her own room. The clerk just shrugged and said, “No English!” Jill had a thing about hotel rooms. It was different than sharing a room on a ship. To Jill, being in a hotel room meant … hotel sex. It was an agreement between David and Jill. No women in his room while he was on assignment—not for any reason. David adhered to the agreement and now Jill was faced with a breach of trust.

Jill’s shoulders slightly slumped when Zayed said. “Wait here, I will get our bags.” He left, not waiting for her reaction.

“David would understand,” she told herself. But a feeling of dread hit her stomach as they walked down the long hallway towards their room. She didn’t want to be put in this position. It wasn’t as if Zayed had a beer belly and stank of too much cologne. He was strikingly handsome. His strong stature, his rock hard muscles, and even stronger demeanor—she liked that in a man. But she was in love with David and really that’s all that mattered, didn’t it?

Twisting the key, Zayed opened the door and Jill stepped in. But she stopped so fast that Zayed bumped into her and knocked her slightly forward. The room was filthy, seedy and dark, lit only by a harsh light bulb dangling from a wire. Dark stains dotted the cracking paint on the walls. There were two tiny beds and no other furniture.

Apprehensively, Jill walked towards the only other door in the room. “What a shit hole!” she blurted out loud. Water dripped from the toilet before spattering along the grungy floor, trickling towards the lopsided rusty bathtub.

“Don’t worry,” Zayed soothed, coming so close that she could feel him. “There is no hot water anyway. They only turn it on from 8 a.m. to 8:30. We will find David tomorrow and get out of here. We are lucky to get a room with a bathroom at all; they said only two rooms have toilets.”

“If David hasn’t checked into the hotel, then what the hell are we still doing here?” Miffed at where she had to stay, she pushed past him, reached over to the closest bed and went through her ritual of pulling down the stained bedcover. The other occupants were obvious. Cockroaches scurried off the bed and disappeared into a hole at the base of the floor. Jill looked down at the sheets and decided she would sleep standing up.

Zayed said sternly from behind her, “I have to go out and find someone who can help us locate David. If he had been here someone would know. He’s blonde and American, so he’d stand out.”

She stared down at the hole-ridden floorboards in thought. “I’m going with you,” she said just as sternly.

“It’s too dangerous,” he protested. “Women do not go out after dark.”

Jill thought for a moment. “What do you need to go and do?”

“I need to find a contact or someone with any sort of information. I will start with the hotel clerks and see what I can find out. Money helps!” he finished.

“What? What are you going to ask them … have you seen this guy? Seriously,” she mocked.

“I’ll be back shortly. Do not open the door for anyone. I have a key, so I won’t be knocking.” And with that Zayed closed the door behind him, turned the key in the deadbolt, and his footsteps faded up the hall.